Development and UX from Michael Mahemoff. Maker of Player FM. Previously: Google, BT, O'Reilly author. Also thesis papers.

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WIKI sells, Wiki doesn’t

‘Wiki’ derived its name from the Hawaiian for “quick”. But acronyms sell better in the corporate world, as anyone who’s ever won a business case for working with POJOs will be acutely aware, or anyone who’s found AJAX 0wns Ajax. JAVA beats Java when you’re selling a $2K seminar and you wouldn’t be the first to ask, what does COMET stand for anyway?

Therefore, wiki adoption (or, world domination) will be faster if we can make wiki become WIKI. According to YouKnowWhoPedia, there is already one backronym for wiki: “What I Know Is”. Yeah, it’s not much; I know “I-K-I” isn’t the easiest set of letters to work with, but still, we can do better!!!

G’Day

Welcome to Michael Mahemoff's blog, soapboxing on software and the web since 2004. I'm presently using HTML5 and the web to make podcasts easier to share, play, and discover at Player FM. I've previously worked at Google and Osmosoft, and built the Ajax Patterns wiki and corresponding book, "Ajax Design Patterns" (O'Reilly 2006).
For avoidance of doubt, I'm not a female, nor ever have been to my knowledge. The title of this blog alludes to English As She Is Spoke, a book so profoundly flawed it reminded me of the maturity of the software industry when this blog began in 2004. I believe the industry has become more sophisticated since then, particularly the importance of UX.
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